Pumpkin Hour
by Inudaughter Returns
Summary: A tale of two readers requests, Arnold has his appendix taken out so his friends visit him and his Grandpa comes up a with plan to scare Arnold and Gerald on Halloween to pay them back for the time they used his old radio to broadcast a space alien invasion.
1. Chapter 1

**Total spoiler alert. One reader, Sophia2017, requested a story where Helga nurses Arnold after he has his appendix taken out. I know some of you readers might have had something like that happen to you! One reader, Gakuto1991, requested Grandpa and others to dress up as zombies to scare Arnold. So this story will fulfill these two requests. The new Jungle Movie comes out on Thanksgiving. Thank you for all your readership and support. Over 2,500 views last month is not bad. It has been a joy and a pleasure to share in the glory of fanfiction with you. ;)**

One thing that Helga had longed for, passionately, had been to go to the monster truck rally and see the great big cars with giant wheels crush all the other tiny cars into sheet metal. And so she got her wish on a fine early autumn day. The leaves on the maples outside were crimson. The stadium was packed with cheering and jeering crowds and best of all, the friends in her class were there, too. Everyone was- even the kids she did not like.

Ah, but best of all was Arnold. The boy with spiky blond hair was there with a wild grin on his face as he imagined himself driving a giant purple and blue monster truck through a jungle filled with prehistoric creatures. But then his smile fell and he placed a hand up against his forehead. He turned toward Gerald.

"Gerald, I'm not feeling so good," the boy uttered, attracting Helga's and everyone else's attention. "Do you mind if we go get some air?"

"Sure, man," was Gerald's helpful reply. Instinctively, he held an arm out to steady Arnold as the boy tottered from the stadium seat to the walkway home. Surprisingly, his friends elected to tag along with him.

"Man. You don't look so good," Gerald remarked as they attained the better lighting. "Your cheeks are red! And man, you are burning up!" Gerald lamented as he lay the back of his hand against Arnold's forehead. Helga fretted in the background. But so, too, did Rhonda. She whipped out her cellphone.

"I'd better call a cab!" she said. "So we can get Arnold to a doctor!"

The result of all this was that a few weeks later, instead of being a school being a diligent schoolboy, Arnold was diligent resting in bed at home in his room below the glass roof. The boy with the messy knot of hair looked up through the ceiling to see the blue of the sky, then looked down again as the door to his room cracked open. His Grandpa, Phil, popped in through the open door.

"How's it going, Arnold? Do you need anything? A glass of water perhaps? Perhaps you'd like to borrow a my copy of Hillwood Fly-fishing Magazine? Ooh, it's a good one! I've been reading it myself for hours!" Arnold wrinkled his nose, since he knew exactly where his Grandpa read his magazines. On the toilet.

"No thanks, Grandpa. I've got plenty of comic books to read. But I am getting a little bored. Do you think I can go back to school soon?"

"Not till the day after tomorrow!" Grandpa waggled a finger at him. "Doctor's orders. But not to worry. Your friend Gerald called, and he'll be coming over to see you shortly."

"That's great, Grandpa!" Arnold smiled.

"Erm, ha," the man said without the same enthusiasm as he shut the door behind him. Arnold lay down for a nap in his room. In a short space of time, Gerald came as promised. The tall-haired one pressed the door open to peer inside, locked eyes with Arnold whom lay on the bed with his thumbs linked across the coverlet, smiled, and strode forward with a broad smile.

"Arnold, my man! Man, it's been boring at school without you! I've missed you. I hope you get to come back soon!"

"You visited me yesterday," Arnold observed.

"Yeah, but it's not the same," was Gerald's mild disagreement. "Anyway, I just wanted to give you a heads up. Stinky, Sid, Eugene, Lorenzo, and Harold were planning on coming over, too! Oh, and here they all are!" Arnold swiveled his head around at the sound of Harold and Sid bickering over the shut doorknob. Then both boys tumbled in.

"Oh, hey Arnold!" Sid said collecting himself to his feet first as he brushed off his black leather jacket. "How've you been? We've all come to visit you!"

"Obviously," Harold complained, as bulky and pudgy as ever.

"Oooh, it's great to see you!" Eugene muttered as he examined the boy tucked into his bed. "Did you get stitches?" Arnold pulled up his shirt to show a scar stitched neatly on his tummy.

"Oooh! That's cool!" said Sid. "Maybe it'll leave a scar!"

"Now why 'en the dang heck would he want a scar fer?" asked Stinky Peterson. "Better that it heals up nice and smooth."

"Nah, that way it'll give him a gritty, tough guy look!" Sid said punching the air with his fist. Arnold ignored all of it.

"It's nice of you to visit me," he said tucking himself back into his bed covers as a proper bed patient should.

"Here, Arnold," said Lorenzo reaching into his briefcase. "We brought you a card!" Arnold flipped it open. He was not surprised that two of his friends had signed something rude.

"Um, thanks guys!"

"Yeah. That's pretty much what we came by to say," announced Harold. "So I guess I'll be getting home now. See you at school, next week Arnold!"

"Yeah, get better soon, ya hear!" Sid postured with his knees bent and fingertips thrust out like a hipster.

"Will do," Arnold spoke sublimely. He watched as everyone but Gerald made their way back out the door to his room.

Gerald stayed awhile to talk to his best friend. But after some time, he, too wandered away. A quiet Arnold ate his dinner (served by Grandma) from a tray and went to sleep.

Beep, beep, beep! The next day, Arnold rubbed his eyes and coiled up on his shoulder to slam the alarm button on his alarm clock to "off" and so deaden it's inane ring. But such an action was not to be. Someone's else's hand reached the alarm button first.

"Rise and shine, Arnoldo!" Helga spoke with echoing loudness across Arnold's room. Arnold blinked in the bright morning light and squinted. He looked down at himself once just to make sure he was wearing his pajamas, then up again at Helga.

"Uh, Helga what are you doing? And why are you dressed as Florence Nightingale?" Helga was wearing a starched, white and black outfit with a little white cap.

"And why the heck, not?" was Helga's retort. "She was a woman who said, 'yes I can!' Anyhoo, I'm here to make sure you get better! See! Rice porridge!" Helga said with the manner of promotion while holding up bowl of sloppy white gruel. But her next words were not so encouraging. "Now open up and eat your gruel!" She sat down on a stool next to bed and held up a gloppy spoonful.

"Um, I think I'll pass," Arnold spoke with caution.

"Aw, some girl named Sophia gave this outfit to me on condition. So shut up and eat your porridge!" Helga growled fiercely. Arnold blinked hard, but he opened his mouth wide enough that Helga managed to spoonfeed him three spoonfuls of porridge.

"Helga," Arnold managed to utter out after swallowing the porridge forced on him. "Why aren't you watching Saturday cartoons or something?"

"Are you kidding, Arnoldo?" Helga uttered. "They're all reruns this week. I checked the listing already. Besides, I'd prefer a bit of gratitude for my sterling company."

"Hm," Arnold uttered out, thinking. "Well since you're here, do you wanna watch some movies?" Helga nodded her head up and down with glee.

Soon the two of them were seated downstairs on the living on the green couch with a bowl full of popcorn. Helga might have been happy. But Arnold was watching episode after episode of what, to her, seemed the dopiest of shows imaginable. She muttered to herself as much.

"You wanna watch another one?" Arnold beamed. Helga flinched away from the paper and plastic box.

"Er, no. How about something else?" She rooted through a pile of boxes. "You've got zombie movies?"

"Those are Grandpa's," Arnold explained as Helga examined the stockpile of horror films. "He and Ernie watch them. Why, do want to see one?"

"Not especially. How about this one?" Helga said poking a box out from the base of the stack.

"A nature documentary?" Arnold lifted a brow. "You watch those?"

"All the time!" Helga said with blunt honesty. "Why? Does it bother you?"

"Ah, no I'm just surprised," said Arnold. "Although if I recall the reason I stopped watching it was because… because," Arnold tried to remember. Then a thought popped into his head. "That one was of courtship rituals of… well, never mind what's on it!" Arnold said leaping up onto to the tape as if it was a football. He wrestled it away, much to Helga's surprise.

"Hey! Easy there!" was Helga's mild rebuff. "You'll rip your stitches, tiger! How about you read something instead? I'll go get your comic books or something. Just prop your feet up and stay put, 'kay?" Arnold blinked three times and tipped his head sideways in astonishment as Helga fluffed a pillow three times and nudged it under his ankles so that he might lay, cross-armed and deeply sunk in the couch. Arnold wore a look of surprise again when his Grandma Gertie also entered the room wearing another, antiquated nurse's outfit, this one white with a matching, triangular hat. "Oh no," Arnold palm-slapped his forehead. Now there were two crazy cosplayers looking after him.

"Time for your medicine, Arnold!" Gertie said nudging a tray with a glass of water and a bottle of aspirin near the boy. "And Eleanor's brought you a sandwich, the sweet dear."

Silent and more subdued than earlier, Helga managed one of her saucy grins as she held up a tray with a peanut butter sandwich and a tall glass of grape juice.

"Only the finest peanut butter!" she said exultingly of the sandwich. "Oh! And I've got to go get your comic books!"

"Uh, never mind those, Helga," spoke up Arnold. He waved a hand in the direction of the bookshelf in the living room. "One of those will do." So Helga selected a green book from the bookshelf and handed it to Arnold. The grandfather clock chimed and Helga checked her watch.

"Lunchtime huh?" she said quietly to herself. "I guess it's time for me to go."

"You don't have to," Arnold pled. "You can have a peanut butter sandwich, too."

"No, Arnold," Helga said. "I think it's better if I stop in at home, you know, to let Olga and Miriam know I haven't dropped off the map. But I think you'll be fine, unless one of the zombieopolypse movies on that shelf comes true." Helga winked, then feeling heavy-hearted but determined, strode to the door. She opened it, then slammed the door behind her only to hear the sound of "ack!" from behind her. Somehow, slamming the door with great force had not only caused things to sway, it had jarred Arnold's nerves so much that he had tipped his wrist to a slant. Which was disastrous since he had been holding the food tray in one hand and reaching for the grape juice with the other. The glass of frothy, inky grape juice spun around in a circle on its bottom glass rim, then tipped over and dripped across the tray and into Arnold's lap. Helga poked her head back through the door at the sound of Arnold's yell.

"Oh my gosh, Arnold!" she yelped and nearly chewed on her fingernails. "Here, let me get you a towel or something." Arnold and the living room were stained with grape juice in a wide area of purple-dyed disaster. But as Arnold frowned down at his wickedly stained shirt with dismay and tried to mop the grape juice from off his neck with a towel, other people were drawing near to Arnold to visit him. One such person was Sid, who walked along the sidewalk outside the boarding house with no complex ambitions in mind other than to say hello. But the second person to be thinking about Arnold was someone with mischief in mind and this time, that person was not Helga. It was his Grandpa, Phil.

"Heehee!" Grandpa chuckled as he listened through the door. "Arnold's still busy with his little friend," Grandpa informed Ernie Potts and Mr. Huynh. Mr. Kokoshka hovered in the background of the group of men. "So let's all go on and try these costumes I bought! Arnold and Gerald might have got the better of us once, but this Halloween, we're gonna scare the pants off them good!"

"Aw, isn't that mean, Grandpa?" Mr. Kokoshka fumbled as he whimpered. "Why would you want to do a thing like that?"

"Oh, it's not MEAN," Grandpa Phil emphasized. "It's just good, not-so-fair fun! After all, those boys are askin' for it after the prank they pulled on us at Halloween! As far as I see, it that's a declaration of war and we'll show 'em that no one can prank the master! 'Sides, messin' with Arnold keeps my twilight years interesting."

So Phil, Ernie Potts, Mr. Huynh, and Mr. Kokoshka all donned zombie costumes. On the balance, they looked a bit more goofy than authentic. But the costumes were enough to be terrifying for a kid named Sid who spotted them through the window.

"Ack!" Sid yammered to himself from the yard. "Zombies? Did I really just see that?! Calm down, Sid! I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation. Other than Arnold and his family have all turned into zombies!" Sid yelped as he pressed his palms together in a crouching expression of fear.

"Sid," Gerald announced abruptly from behind the crouching boy. "What are you doing?" Gerald had snuck up behind Sid, but the boy was elated to have company. He clutched Gerald's shoulders and pointed to the window of the house.

"Gerald, did you see that?!" Sid quaked. "Zombies! In the house! Ooh, Arnold must be a goner!"

"Um-hum," Gerald said, unimpressed between his hooded eyes. "Have you been watching too much thriller-t.v. again? I told you to knock that off!" Gerald asked before striding up to Arnold's front door and its tall stoop. "I'm sure everyone's fine! Let's go see!"

Gerald rung the doorbell. Then, when nobody answered, he took the liberty of opening the front door and walking in. He passed by a door early in the hallway of the house. The door cracked open and Grandpa Phil appeared suddenly, holding a paper bag as large as a suitcase in one hand.

"OOOH!" Grandpa Phil flustered. "Nothing to see here, boy! Not hiding anything at all, nope! You go on now! Go and say hello to Arnold!" Grandpa Phil chuckled a low, cunning chuckle as Gerald walked slowly down the hall with Sid straggling behind him.

"See, Sid?" Gerald grinned. "I told you everything was fine!" But Gerald and Sid both stopped at a halt as Ernie and Mr. Huynh both snuck through the kitchen still wearing their costumes.

"What was that?!" Sid panicked.

"I'm sure it was nothing," Gerald said with as much certainty as he could manage. But then he and Gerald entered the living room to find Arnold still lying on the couch, splattered with grape juice and no Helga in sight.

"Ack!" Sid clutched his head. "The zombies have already gotten Arnold!"

"Ribbit!" Sydney the frog agreed from beneath his cap. Arnold looked down at his shirt.

"I don't know what you're going on about, Sid," said the boy. "But it's only grape juice. I'd better change my clothes." Arnold pulled at the collar of his shirt to get the wet material away from his neck. Helga appeared at the door holding a stack of cleaning materials.

"Helga?" Gerald eyed the girl with suspicion. "What are you doing here?"

"Um, causing trouble for the dork, here!" she snapped, unwilling or unable to lower the volume of her fragile pride under his scrutiny. But there was a change of heart mid-sentence, for she continued, "but it's not like I did it on purpose." With a silent frown, she knelt on the carpet and began to scrub it with the towel to mop up the puddle of juice.

"I'm sure Grandma will be able to clean it, somehow!" Arnold consoled her after a long moment of inventive thinking. "Don't worry about it."

"Yeah?" Helga looked up. That was Arnold for you.

Arnold busied himself with changing his shirt. Grandma Gertie worked on despoiling the carpet and Helga let herself out the front door and walked slowly down Arnold's stoop to head for other places, her house perhaps. Then Arnold sat around in his room playing cards with his friends. Days passed. The fall foliage of the street trees grew more brilliant and jacko'lanterns began to be seen everywhere. With a broad smile, Arnold carved one such pumpkin for himself at the kitchen table. He held it up for Gerald to see, but it was even less wide than his face. Gerald's pumpkin was skinny and tall like his hairdo, but much thinner and more pointy. They waited while Grandpa set small, white beeswax candles in each jack o'lantern and lit them so that each boy might get a glimpse of candle light emanating from the jaws of their creations.

"Ooo!" was Arnold and Gerald' collective approval. They used their friendship thumb shake to celebrate.

"They'll look really nice when it gets dark!" Arnold approved, holding tight to his jack o'lantern after the candle had been snuffed.

"Yeah! And Halloween's only a few days off!" said Gerald. "Can we come to your party this year?" Gerald asked of Grandpa.

"Oh, I'm counting on it!" Phil said with glee. He was still planning on scaring the two boys with his costumes. But Arnold and Gerald did not suspect. To be continued.


	2. Chapter 2

The day of the long anticipated Halloween Party at the boarding house arrived. Gerald and Arnold both felt proud of themselves. They felt like real men being invited to associate with all the grownups of the neighborhood. Instead of being sent off to bed, as they might have in previous years, they both left Gerald's house to prowl towards Arnold's home boarding house with purpose. Manfully, they left Timberly, dressed as a pumpkin, behind on Gerald's front porch with a jealous frown and Gerald's mother's with a wide smile on her face. Down the street-light illumined sidewalk, they paced toward their destination. Its exterior looked different tonight. The lightbulbs in all the lamps of the boarding house had been switched to green bulbs for an extra spooky effect so that all the windows glowed green. The outline of a giant spider's web was taped on the stoop's topmost step, and webbing climbed the door. Giant plastic tarantulas and glowing eyes dangled on either side of Gerald as he bravely rang the door bell.

"Hello?" Grandpa Phil swung the door open. "Oh, it's you boys! Come on in! It won't be a party without you!"

"Thanks!" Gerald smiled as he strode through the door. He had been to the boarding house a million times before but tonight, his arrival was extra special. He puffed out his chest as he stuck his fingers into the collar of his superhero costume.

"Oooh, Arnold, and you're looking especially frightful tonight!" Grandpa Phil said admiringly of his grandson. Arnold pushed off the little black face mask off his forehead and grinned so that a pair of plastic vampire fangs might be revealed.

"Thanks!" the boy beamed. Arnold's costume was that of a vampire with a twist.

Arnold and Gerald walked into the party area. Arnold's living room had been transformed. It was the same space where they might have gathered to watch sports games or exchange Christmas presents. Only now, instead of tinsel or sports pennants, they found several dozen adults wearing scary or fun costumes. There, displayed on a table where the pumpkins they had each carved. Grandma Gertie had added her creation, too, but her jack o'lantern was a carved watermelon instead of a proper pumpkin. The first person they met on entering the party was Susie, who was carrying a bus tray like a hostess.

"Trick or treat!" she sang out as she paused with the tray for Arnold and Gerald to select something from it. There were what appeared to be caramel candy apples on it. Gerald reached for one, but Arnold stopped his hand abruptly.

"No, no this one!" Arnold explained as he snatched up two of the treats. He turned towards Gerald to explain after Susie had walked away to show the tray full of food to other people at the party. "Susie really likes crushed almonds so she always decorates the candy apples she makes with almonds. See?" Arnold held the two treats aloft before passing one to Gerald.

"Then what are the ones with coconut on 'em?" Gerald questioned his friend. Before answering, Arnold finished chewing a bite of caramel apple.

"Caramel coated onions," Arnold explained as two of the other guests simultaneously bit into the tricks Susie had so carefully made. Mr. Green's face soured after he had bit the onion and Harvey the mailman gagged at the unexpected flavor.

Arnold and Gerald studied the room all the around them. Grownups were walking back and forth or conversing in groups. To one side of the room was a dining table with many chairs clustered around it. Arnold sat down in one of the chairs and turned toward the plastic skeleton sat in the chair beside him as if he might talk to it.

"Why, hello Arnold!" His Grandma Gertie exclaimed as she found her grandson. She poured Arnold some juice from a clear glass pitcher with fake spiders in the ice cubes. Arnold held up the glass she gave to him to see one of the icecubes better.

"Thanks, Grandma! What's your costume?" he asked politely.

"I'm the dentist, don't you know!" Gertie cackled. "VERY scary! Oh, and for you boys, I've got toothbrushes instead of candy!" she cackled some more.

"Now that is scary," Gerald observed as he received his own cup of spider juice.

"Oh!" Grandma Gertie observed as the doorbell rang. "That might be another guest! Arnold, will you be a dear and answer the door? Your grandpa is busy lending a hand with ring toss."

Arnold turned his head to look. His grandpa was hiding behind a ring toss board with fake severed hands on it and other creepy things. One of those hands was actually his Grandpa's real hand suck through the back of the board. He reached up and tried to snatch the rings midair, much to one of the guest's fright.

"Sure thing, Grandma," Arnold said pushing himself up from the table and away from his juice cup. Arnold strolled back down the hall. He cracked open the door.

"Helga! And Phoebe and Harold and Sid and Stinky. How are you all doing?" Arnold asked. Helga sniffed.

"What, you're not going trick or treating tonight?" Helga asked. Arnold shook his head softly.

"Nah. Although you can probably come to Grandpa's party for a bit if you like. Mr. Huynh is going to do a fortune telling."

"Oooh," Phoebe uttered, impressed.

"Ha!" Helga scoffed. "That's nice, Arnold, but aren't you forgetting something? Some door greeter who forgets the candy!"

"Oh. Sorry. The candy's in here," Arnold said lifting up a small box like a treasure chest. Phoebe opened up the lid and was startled as a tropical snake toy and some bats dangled from its lid from a bit of fishing line. The shy girl leapt backwards on her feet.

"Ah-ha, nice trick, Arnoldo," Helga blurted out with impatience. "Now pay up!" she said holding out her already half-filled candy sack.

"Fangs. It's neck to see you!" Arnold wise-cracked, in keeping with his vampire costume.

"Smarty-pants," Helga grumbled as Arnold dropped a few salt water taffies in her Halloween treat bag. She wiped her feet on the Halloween greeting mat at the door to stroll inside.

What Helga, Phoebe, and her friends found there was Mr. Huynh sitting in a corner with a cardboard box and a crystal ball on it. Mr. Huynh himself was seated on a braid rug and wearing a fortuneteller's hat. He grinned as Phoebe settled herself on the carpet across from him.

"Hello little girl!" he said. "Would you like to have your fortune told? I see.. Behind you is a ghost!" Someone in a costume leapt out and shouted "boo!" at Phoebe. After a small fright, she got to her feet and let Sid sit down in her place.

"Oh, and for you," Mr. Huynh said to Sid. "I also see a ghost!"

"Boo!" the man said again, sounding an awful lot like Ernie.

"I can't believe you fell for that twice!" Helga lamented. Mr. Huynh gestured a finger towards her.

"Come 'er little girl! You, too! Would you like a fortune read?" Helga sat down on the carpet.

"And within my crystal ball I see it!" Mr. Huynh uttered out ominously. "I see a great secret revealed!"

"Ah-ha," Helga coughed as she tugged her shirt collar out of anxiety. "Now that is a scary fortune if ever I heard one."

"Aw, come on you guys!" Harold declared after some time. "Let's get back to trick-or-treating! Or else all the candy that'll be left is old man Ziggy who gives out boxes of raisins!"

"Yeah," Sid and Phoebe both agreed.

"Hm, well thanks for coming," Arnold lamented. "Bye!"

"Ooh, well, if you're trick-or treating," Grandpa Phil spoke up suddenly, causing the kids to pause and turn at the door, "how about I show you the best of all places in Hillwood to go? I'll be your chaperone!"

"What are you talking about, Grandpa?" Arnold asked, suddenly wondering, faintly, at the back of his ordinarily trust-obscured mind if his Grandpa was up to new tricks. Grandpa's next words did not help to inspire his faith.

"Oh, come on trust me!" Phil said with a bit too much glee. Nonetheless, Arnold and his friends watched Phil don a fireman's hat with hatchet on it, then followed him up the street. He turned, then turned again to a small roundabout. They paused in front of a house with ravens on its door. Phil rang the doorbell.

"Trick or treat!" Arnold and his friends chorused together, which was the funnest part. The women who answered the door wearing a witch costume dropped some candy in their treat bags.

"Ooh!" said she. "You are brave children coming down this street."

"And why is that?" Sid pried.

"Haven't you heard?" the woman asked. "On this street there used to a little girl who owned a ferret. One day, the ferret got loose. It ran out of the house and got hit in the street. And ever since then, it's roamed undead, following little children around to try to play with them. You should be careful that it doesn't try to follow you home." Phil and the neighbor gave one another a cunning wink.

"Thank you, Mrs. Gedarlb!" Phil waved happily. "Let's hit a few more houses, then wrap up shall we?" The group of kids and one adult began to walk back down the dimly lit street. Then all of a sudden, they heard a thump. Sid cringed.

"You don't suppose the story that lady told was true, did he?" Sid gulped. "About the undead, zombie-ghost ferret?"

"Of course not!" Harold spoke up loudly. "I don't believe that!" And yet, both boys jumped at the sound of rolling trash can.

"Let's just... Get home, alright?" Phoebe squeaked. Helga snuck along the street close beside Arnold.

As they walked further on, they could not see they were being followed by Ernie and Mr. Kokoshka. The two men ran along behind a wooden board fence, then peered out at the kids and an all-knowing Phil. As Phil winked and gave a thumbs up, Ernie thumped a scrap of wood against an upholstered board to make a strange thud. The thuds began to come every three seconds, growing in strength from dim to loud.

"Ack! What's that?!" Sid gasped. "Run!"

"Willikers!" Stinky exclaimed in his own fright.

The kids all jogged back to the boarding house. Gerald, a little frightened himself, sagged against the door after it had been closed behind him. "Ah, we're safe!" he sighed with relief from behind the locked door. Mr. Huynh appeared in the hall.

"What are you so frightened about?" Mr. Huynh asked them.

"Oh, nothing much!" Phil said smugly. "Just we have a zombie ferret following after us 'cause he likes children! Maybe for breakfast!"

"Grandpa!" Arnold objected, narrowing his eyes at the man. There were more thuds from behind the door.

"Oooh! The wrath of the ghost?" Mr. Huynh exclaimed. "Come with me! Here, we will go upstairs to hide!" Mr. Huynh walked up the staircase. But it was pitch-black in the hall.

"Ooof! What's all this black cloth doing here?!" Helga asked as some fake wood planks slammed shut on them to make a fake barricade. They were boardered by black cloth on one side and the fake wood on the other.

"Ack! We're trapped!" Sid panicked. Someone made a hissing sound like a ferret and shone a flashlight around on them to scare them further. The hair stood up on everyone's but Arnold's head. But Arnold was calm. He examined the fake wood.

"Relax!" Arnold said with a firm frown. "They're just trying to scare us! These boards aren't even real wood! They're cardboard with marker drawn on it. See?" Harold punched through the cardboard easily.

"Yeah!" the boy agreed as they escaped the trap of the hall. Arnold was a little peeved now.

"Grandpa!" Arnold scolded the invisible air, now that his grandfather had vanished. He and his friends walked back down to the party. "Susie, where's Grandpa?"

"He and the others went out to the backyard," Susie said, blinking as innocently as she could. Arnold stomped outside of the boarding house to the backyard, looking for his rascally Grandpa.

"OOOOOOOOO!" Ernie, Mr. Huynh, Mr. Kokoshka, and Phil all rose from beneath leaves and other things to spring out at them. All four men wore their zombie costumes now, although Mr. Kokoshka was so unmotivated that he did not run forward towards them as the others did.

"You go get them," Mr. Kokoshka said, breaking some of the illusion by speaking. "I'll wait right here."

But it was enough to cause the seven kids to run, scattering about the yard in fright. Sid ran into a wall of damp stripes of cloth cut from a towel hung from a tree like tentacles and screamed, "no, no, no!" as he struggled to free himself from the before a zombie Ernie reached him and Stinky. Mr. Kokoshka threw a bucket of ice water on Gerald, who glared up at him with his wet hair. Phil paused.

"No, no, you big ninny!" the man explained, lifting up a second pail of ice water. "You put your hands in the water to make them all cold and clammy! Like this!" he demonstrated.

"Oh, sorry," Mr. Kokoshka grinned, still in his zombie costume.

Phil and Mr. Huynh chased Arnold, Phoebe, and Helga down into a knot between them. Phil began to tickle Arnold with his cold hands, but Arnold stood his ground.

"Alright, alright, Grandpa! We know it's you!" he exclaimed. "Cut it out!"

"Okay, fine, you got us," Phil relented finally to leave Arnold alone. "But we got you good, didn't we?"

"Yeah, you got us," Arnold used his hand to sweep back a bit of his scraggly hair after Grandpa had given him a rough, but friendly, pat on the top of his head. He looked up.

"But you'd better watch it! We might get you back next year!"

"Oooh, the big man has plans! I look forward to it, Arnold." Phil beamed. "Glad to see not all humor's lost on you."

"Hm, well there are only so many tricks we can pull," Gerald disagreed with his friend, on principal. "But maybe we can think about. We've got a whole year!"

"Yeah!" Arnold nodded with gratitude toward Gerald for not refusing to back him up despite what he had so suddenly said.

"Ack!" Helga grimaced as she caught her breath. "You'd better hope I didn't drop any candy thanks to you!" She glared up at Arnold's Grandpa. "Well, we've been here long enough, Phoebes! Let's go home and count our loot! See you around, Arnold!" She waved as she turned on her heel to stomp away.

"Yeah, see you Arnold!" Sid, Stinky, and Harold all muttered as they, too, dispersed.

Grandpa chuckled.

"Well, a successful Halloween party if I do say so, myself! Well, let's go back to the snack table. Maybe there'll be some pudding left!" Phil said with much hope.

Arnold, Gerald, and his Grandpa Phil went back inside to enjoy the remainder of the party. While Arnold was enjoying the party, Phoebe was weighing Helga's candy on scales and scribbling on a noteboard to do a detailed analysis of each kind of treat, sorted in color coordinated piles as Helga watched. Sid, Stinky, and Harold all sat on the floor of Sid's room swapping treats one by one. And above them all, the orange and creepy full moon of Halloween still glowed bright. Maybe somewhere out there, a ferret-zombie was creeping and hissing to scare more trick-or-treaters on the streets. But probably not. The end.


End file.
